Maritime Monday 133

You can find links to all the previous editions at the bottom of this post. You are encouraged to participate using the comment link/form at the bottom of the post. If you have photos or stories to tell, do email me at [email protected]

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This Week’s Photos:

This week’s photos come from a hospital room in Manhattan overlooking the East River that my mother spent a couple days in while recovering from hip replacement surgery. The ‘million dollar view’ was apparently a good distraction.

Sewage Sludge Ship NORTH RIVER

Sludge Ship

Garbage Barge

Sand Barges

US Merchant Marine Academy’s TS KINGS POINTER

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There was a lot more traffic, especially barges and pleasure craft, but these were the most interesting. At the top of the pictures is the entrance to ‘Hell’s Gate.’ My mom has since been released to spend a week in therapy prior to going home.

Barking Moonbat Early Warning system has a hell of a rumor concerning the formally hijacketed Iranian ship the MV DEYANAT that was suspected of carrying a suspicious cargo which might have resulted in the deaths of up to 20 pirates: “One Hell of a Rumor“.

A “ransom” of $250,000 was eventually paid by the U.S., the ship boarded by the Navy, her cargo secured and the crew interrogated and eventually released and the ship was moved, under her own power and with an American crew, to the Muscat port where the U.S. Navy has docking rights. Her manifest was entirely false. The ship was not going to Rotterdam and there was no “German businessman” to take charge of the fictional cargo.

The entire matter has been shut up and you will never see any mention of it in any mainstream media. The matter is now considered closed

Does anyone know where this ship is? Is anyone in Muscat? That is a pretty small port to hide anything.

Fiji Times has the unfortunate death of a Neptune Shipping employee by split peas in “Buried Alive“.

Deep Water Writing has “It’s alot more fun” as he writes about encounters he is having with shore folk while on vacation from his ship. Yes, going to sea does put a hardship on your personal life, not to mention the possibilities for havoc when it comes to dating and marriage. Not that anyone here needs be told this.

Steel shortages, we have been warned, are leading to an increase in the use of structurally-dangerous secondhand steel; with stories now legion of non-state Chinese yards falsifying quality certificates and the widespread use of low-quality steel products.

Three Cuban men forced to work 16-hour shifts at 3 ½ cents an hour repairing ships for a Cuban joint venture in Curacao won an $80 million judgment Monday in U.S. federal court in Miami.

Alberto Justo RodrÃ­guez, Fernando Alonso HernÃ¡ndez and Luis Alberto Casanova Toledo — Cuban nationals who now live in Tampa — sued the Curacao Drydock Co., alleging the company conspired with the Cuban government to force them into virtual slave labor.

Lawyers called the deal a ”Faustian bargain” hatched so the Cuban government could pay off its debt with Curacao Drydock by providing free labor, and at the same time skirt the U.S. embargo by working on American ships in a third country.

Maritime Compass has the story of a Chinese Junk that has made it to the US from China under sail as part of an attempt to do the first round trip of the Pacific under sail by a junk ‘since the Free China who crossed the Pacific 50 years ago never made it back’: “Princess TaiPing“

Molten Eagle has “Private Submarine is Strange” looking at a man who has home-built his own deep-dive submarine. Go and read the post and definitely watch the trailer for a documentary being made of his ‘adventure’. Would you take a dive in his sub?

“They can’t trade their way out of this problem,” Bows told the 150 climate experts at the conference, according to the Guardian. “At current rates of growth, they will be consuming a significant proportion of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. It will be way more than their fair share and an amount that simply can’t be traded away.”

They will make transport so expensive that the world’s poor won’t be able to afford travel. Not only that, but if you can go to war for territory, oil and ideology, why not over carbon? Any item in short supply will do as a reason.

From June: Indeed, Kennedy has been a friend to the Academy in more ways than one. Absent his help on Capitol Hill, it is certain that MMA’s current training ship would not be nearly as good a platform for the development of the next generation of America’s future commercial mariners. On the other side of the aisle, they call it pork. At the Academy, he is hailed as the guy who got the job done. Beyond this, Kennedy has for years extended the honor of crewing his private sloop to Academy cadets. The tradition has cemented an unlikely relationship between a privileged and powerful family and the sons and daughters of the middle and working classes.

As the class of 2006 drove off into the rain, the voting record of the Massachusetts Democrat follows them into the workplace. Against drilling in Alaska, LNG marine terminals in New England, nuclear energy and, apparently, alternative (renewable) wind energy – at least where it affects his recreational view – Kennedy has limited MMA graduates for years as they pursued sustainable employment.

A question I’ve been asked many times over the last five years has been “What do they mean by ‘direct supervision’? Does that mean I can’t even make a head call or get a snack?”. This is in reference to the relationship between an apprentice mate / steersman and a master, mate or pilot of towing vessels, and how they may be used in a watch standing role.

Information Dissemination has “Shipbuilding Again – Over There” looking at shipbuilding problems for the UK’s Royal Navy which might also cost the US in terms of support, if their ships aren’t there at the end of the day.

Pollock and other fish in the Bering Sea are moving to higher latitudes as winter ice retreats and water temperatures rise. – Alaskan pollock are becoming Russian pollock, swimming across an international boundary in search of food and setting off what could become a geopolitical dispute.

UK – MCA rescues Captain Calamity – twice – The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) issued apress notice stating that it is, for the second time in three days, responding to a distress call from the owner-operator of a trimaran. On October 19, the MCA responded to a call from the owner-operator stating that he was lost at sea in the vicinity of Burnham-on-Sea. After the vessel was located and towed into port, it was discovered that there were no lifejackets, flares, charts, or VHF radios on board. The trimaran got underway again. On October 21, the MCA received a call that the vessel was aground off Burnham-on-Sea. (10/21/08). – Dennis Bryant Holland & Knight homepage(Used with Permission)

Fake tug captain faces jail – A US tug “captain” now faces up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines after his employer – and the USCG – discovered he was working with a forged licence. Mark D Millien, a 45-year-old resident of Louisiana, pleaded guilty last week to a one count indictment for “using an altered, changed, forged and/or counterfeit United States Coast Guard license to gain employment as a captain of a vessel.” US Attorney Jim Letten says the man was indicted on 28 March and will be sentenced on 21 January 2009. According to court documents, Millien had been issued a master’s licence to operate uninspected towing vessels on US western rivers in 2000 but subsequently had that licence revoked in 2005 for undisclosed reasons. The man then applied to the KC Boat Company in Marrero for a job as tug captain and presented what appeared to be a valid master’s ticket. He was hired and worked as a captain for 227 days before the company sought to verify the merchant mariner’s licence – and found it was false. – Fairplay Homepage(Used with Permission)

AND:

Sunken barge ‘had no master’ – THE HELMSMAN who steered the tug Mel Oliver and its oil-laden barge into the path of a tanker on 23 July told a hearing that he routinely operated the vessel without a master aboard – and his employers knew it.

John Paul Bavaret II, a licensed apprentice, said yesterday that the collision – which caused a massive oil spill that closed the Mississippi River for days – happened because he was distracted by a malfunctioning radar unit. Once he become aware that the downriver bound tanker Tintomar was bearing down on his vessel, he told the USCG hearing officer that the tug’s steering jammed and he was unable to change course.

In his testimony, Bavaret said that his employer DRD Towing had been piloting the tug solo for months. On the day of the event, he said he was unsupervised because his captain was off vessel and hundreds of miles away tending to a personal matter.

The resultant spill of 1,400 tonnes of No. 6 fuel oil closed the river from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico for six days. – Fairplay Homepage(Used with Permission)

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Submissions for future editions:

Please submit articles for inclusion in next week’s edition using the following submit form at Blog Carnival. You are also welcome to email stories and photos to [email protected] for inclusion in future editions as well as suggest areas of coverage.

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Previous Editions: As linked below or click on the tag ‘Maritime Monday’ for all gCaptain editions.